Bouncer pleads not guilty to weekend assault on patrons

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A bouncer from the Grand Canal club pleaded not guilty to one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on Tuesday, after he was arrested over the weekend on accusations of kicking and punching a group of clubgoers during a fight that sent three people to the hospital, prosecutors said.

Sidney Phillips, 31, of Avon was released on $1,500 cash bail after his arraignment in Boston Municipal Court.

Boston police arrested Phillips early Sunday morning after they identified him using a cellphone video of the fight, which allegedly showed Phillips kicking a man in the head three times while the victim was on the ground.

Phillips was the only bouncer arrested after the fight, but a police report lists one other unknown bouncer as a suspect.

Witnesses told police that another bouncer held the male victim down while Phillips kicked him and a third bouncer choked one woman and kicked another in the stomach, according to the report.

Phillips’s lawyer could not be reached for comment. The patrons did not suffer serious injuries.

David Murray, owner of the Grand Canal, and the club’s lawyers declined to comment on Phillips’s arrest or whether other bouncers were involved. Murray attended a Licensing Board hearing regarding the club, which is on Canal Street, Tuesday, but no vote was taken, said Nicole Murati Ferrer, board spokes­woman.

The police report said the fight began when a group of 10 men and women at the club accidentally bumped into another woman.

When that woman began to argue with the group, an unknown bouncer “charged the group and escorted them out with great physical force,” the victims told police, according to the report.

One of the victims told police that once outside the club, an unknown bouncer kicked her in the stomach and threw her in a car.

When her boyfriend tried to intervene, he was tackled by another bouncer and Phillips repeatedly kicked him in the head, the report said.

The report said Phillips was involved in another assault at the Grand Canal in November, although details were not available.

The club’s managers were
“not very cooperative” when police arrived to break up the fight, the police report said. The managers were slow to assemble the club’s bouncers, and it took officers more than 20 minutes to find Phillips, who was hiding in the basement of the club wearing different clothes than he had on earlier in the night, according to the report.